I don't understand what everyone's hang up is with the torture scene. In regards to it being a torture scene and out of place, by time the mission is over they clearly illustrate their attempt to provide social commentary on the subject.

In regards to Trevor being the one to do it and what it says about his character, truth of the matter is that Trevor is a poorly written character (as Jeff basically suggests) as well as Franklin. So, yes it did bother me that he was so "might as well, got nothing better to do" about the whole situation but by time the game is over it's clear they have no real direction for his character so it kind of makes sense within that vein

I really wouldn't be surprised if very early storyboards had Micheal as the only character being that he's the only one who has some type of actual character development

As far as the money goes. I never felt like that lack of money and feeling like you never have enough tied into the overall narrative or commentary (i'm not saying that they're wrong by suggesting that it does) I just felt like it was Rockstar's way of combating the inevitable pitfall of open world games where you do enough things that nets you more money than you know what do with within the first hour that essentially trivializes the rest of the game. Although i didn't care for the crew basically being Yes men for the FIB in order to pull it off, i found the lack of funds quite refreshing. It was nice to feel like i was actually moving at the pace the story was setting as oppose to feeling like i had more money then i needed but then have someone like franklin constantly talk about wanting to make more money than street hustling provides

He's at least second to Lamar. Either way, both are heavily underused

The term "strong" was originally meant as a synonym for "well-written." Over the last five to eight years however, it's been warped and perverted to mean "agrees with my political agenda" in the eyes of the Chris Plante types.

Example: despite being an utter bitch Amanda De Santa is actually a strong character. She's well-written, multidimensional, and can be the most abrasive fucking nag I've seen outside of a few real life people. That all said, she feels like a fully realized person.

I love watching white straight guys tell people what makes women strong. Patriarchy much Chris Plante?

Fun is free.

Yeah...thats not what "strong" means in the context its being used in.

I may listen to this but I've about had it up to here with the Plantian perspective...

Thank you for sharing this.

I love how much hyperbole goes on on these forums. One person says something mildly offensive, and all of a sudden the whole community is supposed to feel ashamed for it.

I didn't see any issue with Chris' comments. I think he was right on with Franklin's storyline, which didn't go anywhere. As for the women, its hard to know since we only got 1-2 minutes max of dialog for any one woman in the game. I agree with them that Amanda's brutal death didn't mean much and seemed out of place.

@oldirtybearon: This. I think the Plante guy used the word strong in a positive sense (about the woman that Trevor kills) and failed to realize that that character just fell victim to the Rockstar binary of women as either helpless/stupid or professional bitch-goddess. The fact that Trevor murders her is not the thing to get hung up on. It is the fact that Rockstar can only write two types of female characters. That Plante guy sounds like a typical example of the urbanite's hyper-liberal worldview.

@nodima: I think the point is less about tolerance and more about Michael and Trevor being personality types that _do_ freak out when they smoke (relatively strong) weed. Plante looks at Franklin's reaction and tries to figure out what's different about Franklin rather than what is different about Michael and Trevor; furthermore it says something about Plante's personal views that when he looks at the difference in personality and characterization between Franklin and the older two, his initial conclusion is that their main difference is racial. When he looks at them for differences, his first conclusion is that their main difference is that Frank is black and Mike and Trevor are white so therefore any difference in personality is because of a difference in race.

@toowalrus: Great post.

I remember originally when criticizing folks like Chris Plante was 'silencing'. Quit silencing him with your posts where you poke holes in his logic or criticize his evidence. Now, criticizing someone for their arguments is 'stop freaking out' where 'freaking out!' equals saying anything on a public forum that others can hear.

Remember kids, if you disagree with something or someone that is popular, just shut your mouth. You can only criticize things most people don't believe in.